Wednesday 18 August 2010

We all have a moral obligation to oppose micro-abortions

There have been a number of stories recently about the use of birth control drugs and devices as so-called emergency contraception e.g. Mail on Sunday, Reuters.  I have of course written many times before about the wider implications for the culture of life of contraception, that is, the intentional separation of the unitive and procreative meanings of conjugal relations. Without revisiting that here, I wish to highlight the abortifacient nature of most birth control drugs and devices.

According to the manufacturers of these drugs and devices, one of their modes of action is to prevent the implantation in the womb of newly-conceived human embryos; in other words, to kill unborn children through micro-abortion. It is a simple fact that the killing of unborn children by morning-after pills is just as wrong as, say, killing unborn children through partial-birth abortion. An abortion is an abortion is an abortion. The specific aspects of micro-abortion and of partial-birth abortion may differ. For example, a micro-abortion involves killing:
  • the most vulnerable and dismissed human beings
  • usually by people who deny or are unware of the humanity of human embryos and the abortifacient mode of most birth control
  • in an uneventful, unseen way (at least superficially).
A partial-birth abortion involves killing:
  • babies who are clearly identifiable to the naked eye as babies
  • often by people who know and accept the humanity of late-term unborn children and the homicidal nature of late-term abortion
  • through the most horrific dismemberment.
These things are different aspects of the respective abortion techniques, but not differences in the fundamental nature and objective wrongness of those techniques, which are equal.

It is therefore clear that:
  • parents
  • teachers
  • medics
  • pharmacists
  • clergy
all have a moral obligation:
  • not to be complicit in any way in the distribution, promotion or use of
  • to exercise conscientious objection to
  • to act and warn against the use of
the morning-after pill and all other birth control drugs and devices which may have an abortifacient mode of action.

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
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